Filed under: Utilities, Web services, web 2.0

There are plenty of comparison tools for site traffic. Given a few minutes, we’re willing to bet our readers could create a graph of a site’s popularity over time. But what about graphing an artist’s plays on MySpace or YouTube, how often people write blog posts about each presidential candidate, or how many people are seeding a file on BitTorrent? Trendrr lets you graph, compare, and mash up this kind of data with ease.

Trendrr makes graphing simple by including a drag-and-drop scratchpad that lets you edit and compare graphs with a minumum of effort. The system is based on the RESTful api, which means advanced users can hack together their own trends - there’s an example on the site of graphing your computer’s CPU usage over time. For everyone else, though, the list of built-in data sources includes popular sites like eBay and YouTube. Don’t miss the gallery of popular graphs, which are sometimes informative and sometimes just funny.

Read

Share This

Share This

Open Savings Accounts, Money Market Accounts

Share This

Share This

Fogerty’s ghost notes that the Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether exonerated RIAA defendants should automatically be awarded attorneys’ fees. Texas resident Cliff Thompson was sued by the RIAA, which subsequently dropped its copyright infringement lawsuit after it determined that his adult daughter was the culprit. Thompson was denied attorneys’ fees by the district and appeals courts and is asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on the matter. “In the petition for certiorari filed with the Supreme Court, Thompson’s attorney Ted Lee lays out the RIAA’s legal strategy and notes what he describes as the ‘inherent unfairness’ of the lawsuits… The fight between the RIAA and alleged copyright infringers is inherently unbalanced due to the vast financial resources available to the record labels. The risk-reward ratio for defendants is seriously out of kilter, and mandating that a successful defense — even if it comes from the RIAA’s decision to voluntarily dismiss a case — results in the record labels picking up the tab would even things out.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

Ripit writes “Just yesterday the Justice Department approved the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Radio, a Sirius takeover to the tune of $5 billion. The transaction was approved without conditions, despite opposition from consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign by the land-based radio industry. ‘In explaining the decision, Justice officials said the options beyond satellite radio — digital recordings, high-definition radio, Web radio — mean that XM and Sirius could merge without diminishing competition. “There are other alternatives out there,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett stated in a conference call. “We just simply found that the evidence didn’t indicate that it would harm consumers.”‘”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

Amy Bennett writes “This past weekend we discussed an increasing level of attacks on the web, targeting Tibetan-based NGOs. Now the BBC is reporting that the Save Darfur Coalition has called in the FBI on what appears to be a similar matter. Allyn Brooks-LaSure, a spokesman with the group, doesn’t know who is behind the attacks, but he stated the IP addresses of the computers that had hacked his organization were from China. Save Darfur has been trying to get China, one of Sudan’s largest trading partners, to pressure Sudan’s government into stopping the mass killings in Darfur’s ongoing civil war. ‘Someone in Beijing is trying to send us a message,’ Brooks-LaSure stated. Probably the same message they’re sending by continuing to shut down video sites covering the Tibetan unrest.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

knorthern knight writes “The Canadian family-run ISP Teksavvy (which is popular among Canadian P2P users precisely because it does not throttle P2P) has started noticing that Bell Canada is throttling traffic before it reaches wholesale partners. According to Teksavvy CEO Rocky Gaudrault, Bell has implemented ‘load balancing’ to ‘manage bandwidth demand’ during peak congestion times — but apparently didn’t feel the need to inform partner ISPs or customers. The result is a bevy of annoyed customers and carriers across the great white north.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

Amy Bennett writes “This past weekend we discussed an increasing level of attacks on the internet, targeting Tibetan-based NGOs. Now the BBC is reporting that the Save Darfur Coalition has called in the FBI on what appears to be a similar matter. Allyn Brooks-LaSure, a spokesman with the group, doesn’t know who is behind the attacks, but he stated the IP addresses of the personal that had hacked his organization were from China. Save Darfur has been trying to get China, one of Sudan’s largest trading partners, to pressure Sudan’s government into stopping the mass killings in Darfur’s ongoing civil war. ‘Someone in Beijing is trying to send us a message,’ Brooks-LaSure said. Probably the same message they’re sending by continuing to close down video sites covering the Tibetan unrest.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

simoniker writes “In a new weblog post on Dobbs Code Speak, Intel’s James Reinders discusses the growth of concurrency in programming, suggesting that ‘…programming for multi-core is catching the imagination of programmers more in Japan, China, Russia, and India than in Europe and the United Says.’ He also comments: ‘We see a significantly HIGHER interest in jumping on a parallelism from programmers with under 15 years experience, verses programmers with more than 15 years.’ Any anecdotal evidence for or against from this community?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, General Motors (GM), Marketing and advertising, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)

With people in Japan showing less and less interest for cars, Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) is exploring more efficient methods to increase sales in its strong competition with rival General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) for the title of the world’s largest automaker. The attempt to boost sales has become even more difficult as, according Toyota officials, young people prefer spending their money on laptops or mobile phones than a car that could be easily replaced by public transportation.

In an attempt to reach younger people and lift vehicle sales, Toyota is opening a new mall located in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo. The new Tressa mall is pretty much like any other malls, with 220 stores and restaurants like cafes, clothing stores and even gym or games centers where people enjoy spending their time. However, in the new mall space, Toyota showrooms take center stage, placing at people’s disposal a large variety of old and new vehicles models.

One thing that Toyota is aware of, and trying to improve upon, is that in Japan showrooms and TV advertising are not efficient any more in attracting people’s interest for buying vehicles. The new mall is aimed at accomplishing Toyota’s plan of global domination by providing “opportunities for people to come in contact with automobiles.”

For the moment, is unclear if Toyota’s plan will be successful. In addition, the Japanese automaker is showing concerns about its global sales target for this year, which was set at 9.85 million. The company is blaming both the weakening U.S. economy and higher raw material prices. In the United Says, automobile demand has been declining, injured by the tight credit crisis, tumbling dollar and surging crude prices that put pressure on consumer spending.

With the current market conditions, Japanese car makers are facing a tough environment as the yen has been rising against the dollar. But with this new strategy and Toyota’s ambitious plans to defeat the competition, it could be just a matter of time before it gets back people’s interest for its automobile models.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

Share This

Share This

Charlotte Observer | Banking
Banking extra description Bailout shores up Bear Stearns Fed to supply cash to securities firm via JP Morgan Chase in order to prevent wider damage to economy

Armed Forces Bank, N.A. || Your Hometown Bank Around The World
Armed Forces Bank: Military and Civilian Banking If you are a new recruit and need to open an account to receive your military pay, you have come to the right place.

Wachovia Banking
Free checking accounts and savings accounts are available at Wachovia. Visit the Wachovia Banking Center online to find checking, savings, credit card, and debit card accounts.

Fifth Third Bank | Personal | Home
Bank and savings and loan holding company with subsidiaries which perform commercial banking operations, savings bank operations, mortgage banking, trust services, investment

WaMu.com: Home of WaMu Free checking
WaMu Investments, Inc., WaMu Insurance Services, Inc. (“WaMuIns”) and WaMu 1031 Exchange are affiliates of Washington Mutual, Inc. and its banking subsidiaries.

TD Canada Trust - Banking - Electronic Banking
Synovate Award: Global Finance: TD Canada Trust rated ” Ideal On the web Banking ” in customer service in 2007 among the country’s five major banks. TD Canada Trust rated ” Ideal

Banking News - Topix
Banking news continually updated from thousands of sources around the net. Banking News Banking news continually updated from thousands of sources around the net.

Wells Fargo Home Page
Start here to bank and pay bills on the web. Wells Fargo provides personal banking, investing services, small business, and commercial banking.

Flagstar Bank
Savings and loan holding company with subsidiaries which perform savings and loan operations, mortgage banking and other related financial activities. (Nasdaq: FLGS).

Wachovia - Personal Finance and Business Financial Services
Financial services company offers online banking, bill pay, brokerage, loans, and financial planning, as well as services for small businesses and corporations.

Global Markets & Investment Banking
Background to the Global Markets & Investment Banking (GMI). GMI provides investment banking, capital markets and sales and trading services to corporations, governments and

CSC: Banking
More than 150 of the world’s largest banks in 20 countries rely on CSC’s software, services and global IT infrastructure to reduce operating risk, improve performance and focus on

Share This

Share This